Room in the circle
How hospitality changed one man, our church and our family
How hospitality changed one man, our church and our family. By Karen Hiebert
When I first met my friend Norman, he was a 47-year-old baseball-loving man with a toothless grin and booming voice. He began attending Toronto’s Stone Church after a group of our young adults met him in a park where he was picking bottles out of garbage cans. At first, he was hesitant to accept their kindness, but after repeated offers and the unexpected discovery of a Bible in a garbage can – which he took to be a sign – Norman decided to come to church.
I met Norman there. I learned his father had committed suicide and his mother had placed him in an asylum as a child. He was discharged in his teens. Almost illiterate and with little social support, Norman eventually ended up on the streets selling t-shirts.
Our new friend told us he was baptized as an infant in a Catholic church in Montreal. Years later he experienced the presence of God in a Pentecostal church in that same city. Subsequently it was the Stone Church community in Toronto that made room and enfolded him in a hospitable embrace. He sat with grandparents, parents and singles; with young professionals and university students; with the employed and the unemployed; with Canadian citizens and internationals. Differences in age, appearance, education, ethnicity, employment or economic status were not barriers to inclusion in the circle.
Many of us can think of times when we stood as strangers outside a circle, wishing for a hospitable welcome. And when that circle opened it created something new – a hallowed and holy space – where uncertainty and fear dissipated. That’s what hospitality does. In a culture increasingly characterized by anxiety and alienation, the recovery of face-to-face Christian hospitality revitalizes believers and those standing at the margins of our lives and communities. Hospitality gives life.
We all learned to appreciate Norman’s insights, humour, resilience and sincere faith. Over time, the members of the Stone Church community circle helped Norman acquire reading, cooking, computer and basic budgeting skills. Someone found him an apartment and helped him apply for government assistance. For a time he served our church as the parking lot attendant. Although he lacked polished social skills, he took that responsibility seriously.
We watched his transformation and realized it was taking place, as it does for all of us, because of the gracious hospitality of God often expressed in acts of kindness by others. We too were changed as we responded to Christ’s call to abandon stereotypes, to invite the stranger to become a friend and simply love the “other.”
Norman learned how to pass that hospitality forward. When I gave him sweaters to keep him warm, Norman said thanks and gave away most of them to people who lived on the street. He wanted to be a giver like God, his “good buddy upstairs.” Other gifts Norman shared were his words. I invited him into my Christian high school classroom to share his grace story with my students. Norman would pray for the youth, and many in turn prayed for him – an exchange of hospitality between generations and circumstance.
When my husband and I were wed, Norman travelled with friends to our country wedding. He was excited to attend, but it was really our pleasure to have him as our guest. Years later, after we had moved to Abbotsford with our two daughters, Norman took his first plane trip to visit us, something made possible because of the generosity of a Christian man who had been impacted by Norman’s prayers. With great trepidation Norman flew west to be with us. We ate meals together, taking and receiving the life of Jesus around our table. As a memento of our time together, we had a family photo taken.
When Norman’s estranged mother died, I asked him if he resented her abandonment of him. He explained he couldn’t be bitter because, if his Heavenly Father could forgive him for everything he had done, then he needed to forgive his mother too. Norman’s grace was an expression of God’s hospitality passed forward.
As he aged, a doctor and a social worker from Stone Church found a retirement home for him. When Norman died at 80, a circle of friends gathered to celebrate the life of one of God’s special envoys. In Norman we came to recognize in a personal way our own estrangement and need of the Divine Host who welcomes us into His circle of fellowship. We learned too that the guest-host exchange within Christian hospitality is part of the ongoing mysterious work of God. It reshapes our awareness and personal space so we each are recognized, given a new identity and become more fully human.